Evolved Footwear (EF) offers a range of amazing looking, illuminated customized Nike dunks. Light up sneakers and shoes are gaining momentum judging on the products and concepts popping up lately.

Light in clothing as well as in interior decoration items like pillows, carpets and even sofas become more and more popular. Fabric that ’suddenly’ lights up creates additional magic to lighting and gives the term ’soft light’ a new meaning.

To light up Nike sneakers was not the first priority of Brandon Laskowski a Northwest senior marketing major who started in 2001 customizing his sneaker for the love of it.

His customization was so cool that people around him got interested into his upgraded sneakers and this attraction kept Brandon motivated to add more and more designs and as a unique twist the light dimension.

Laskowski began displaying his customized Nikes online in 2005 under the name Evolved Footwear offering customized sneakers.

Some of our techniques include textured faux snake and gator skins, engraving, peel aways, light up, fabric, painting and more.

The ‘Illuminated Confusion‘ Nike Dunk features a pattern print with neon green light-up lateral sides that either blink or glow.

The lighting on each shoe gets powered by a single AAA battery.

Different designes of light enhanced sneakers are on offer costing $400.- a pair and can be ordered by Evolved Footwear. Order lead-time is around 2-3 weeks as each sneaker is 100% hand modified and upgraded.

[source via Engadget]

We have seen T-Shirts that sniff out Wi-Fi signals and show them on the chest. Although this might be too much geek for some it does have appeal to others (I may count myself to the ‘others’ category).

There is the other option of a more discrete Wi-Fi sniffing integrated in bags as alternative to taking out the computer only to check if a useful and strong enough signal is available.

And now we have the Wi-Fi sniffing sneaker like this upgraded Nike Dunk which is pushing the fashion boundaries very far. Never mind the style of the Nike’s, this concept sneaker has been done in 2006 so they are out of fashion by now.

The remaining question still is: does such a concept appeal to some? To anyone? Or is this creative work just demonstrating what could be done?

If a shoe would record my daily walking jogging or running profile and upload via Wi-Fi to my online tracking system, I could see the point.

If a Wi-Fi sneaker could interact with a computer game a la Wii, I do see the point for having one.

To be fair, I like the integration of the Wi-Fi indication in the sneaker. Neatly done without changing the shoes wearability nor disturbing its appearances.

The designer Stefan Dukaczewik calls his concept sneaker ASRD – ‘A Step in the Right Direction’. The ASRD sneaker is equipped with an integrated 802.11 detection unit embedded under the flap of the left shoe.

Once the pressure sensitive insole is activated, the unit scans the surrounding area for Wi-Fi signals and displays the result through LEDs.

The three LEDs on the flap enclosure represent the signal strength of any Wi-Fi signal within a 50 meter area. A blinking LED represents no signal, while a lighting LED shows that there is a signal present.

If one day those Wi-Fi sneakers become available make sure you keep them clean and avoid muddy streets or you won’t see the signal indication